(Why Did You Lean On) A Man You Knew Was Falling
by UndercoverMoffat
Summary: "What do you mean, good-bye?" Tony asks. They said good-bye ages ago, he was sure, but there's something else in Steve's voice that's making him reconsider this notion. Steve inhales deeply. "Tomorrow, I surrender." Civil War AU. (Starring Superhusbands, Superfamily, and Spideypool)


**I.**

**Give me hope in silence**  
**It's easier, it's kinder**  
**Tell me not of heartbreak**  
**It plagues my soul**

Tony Stark is pouring himself another drink when it happens.

His eyes are sore and swollen, and more than likely bloodshot, but he doesn't dare look at his reflection now, and his damn hands won't stop shaking. Tony doesn't believe in a God, but if he did, now would be the time he'd fall to his knees and pray.

"Sir, there's been a security breach."

JARVIS voice is less than comforting at the moment, and so Tony opens his mouth to say mute, security breach be damned. He already knows who it is, and even if it's someone else, he'd gladly let them in. Let them kill him, God, please, it's all he wants.

"Tony."

It's not JARVIS this time, and Tony almost drops his drink – he slams it down as it is, the tremors in his hands increasing sevenfold, amber liquid sloshing over the side and all over the damn countertop. He closes his eyes, turning his face away, because he can't, not right now.

"Tony, look at me."

There's a shift in the atmosphere near him, like he's moved closer, and Tony full expects a cool touch on his arm, his cheek, anything. It doesn't come, and that's when he finally finds it in himself to open his eyes.

"Steve."

Steve looks no better than Tony, except so much more – there's circles under his eyes, and dust in his hair, and if Tony squints he's sure he can see a cobweb caught in his blonde hair, flashing silver under the fluorescent lighting of Tony's kitchen, right above his temple. He's wearing his Captain America outfit, and there's new bloodstains on the shoulders that Tony doesn't want to think about. But he's still beautiful. Oh so beautiful.

"Drinking again?" Steve's tone is clipped as his gaze shifts to the bottle set off to Tony's right.

Tony snorts like it's funny – which in a fucked up sort of way, it is. Steve says it like it's the worst of their Goddamn problems. Oh, if only. If only. "Sure, why not," Tony shrugs, and he contemplates tossing his glass away and just grabbing the handle of the whole whiskey bottle, but his fingers won't stop trembling. "Why are you here?" he asks, and he lifts his eyes to meet Steve's blue ones – it's like a punch to the gut, the razor sharpness in all that blue.

"I came to say goodbye." It's so Steve it hurts Tony – so matter-of-fact, and professional, like they haven't spent the last ten years of their lives together.

"What do you mean, goodbye?" Tony asks. They said good-bye ages ago, he was sure, but there's something else in Steve's voice that's making him reconsider this notion.

Steve inhales deeply. "Tomorrow, I surrender."

Tony's whole world tips, and his throat closes up, and then the glass in his hand is flying across the room and smashing against the far wall but Steve doesn't even flinch. "No you're not," Tony gets out between gritted teeth. "I'll be damned if you do."

"I can't keep doing this, Tony," Steve says, and his voice finally breaks, showing some humanity behind all that soldier-steel. "All the killing and bloodshed, and losing you – I can't."

"You can't just give up, we -" Tony closes his eyes again. "Please, Steve, there won't be any more."

"Isn't this what you wanted?" Steve snaps, and when Tony opens his eyes, he's right in front of him, in his face, fists clenched at his sides. "It's over, Tony, you got exactly what you gave up everything for."

"I didn't give you up, you ripped yourself from me." It scares Tony, how fast and sharp his words come flying out, and if he didn't feel like he wanted to die, he'd laugh at how damn poetic he sounds.

"I had to," Steve whispers, eyes narrowing. "You know I had to – I couldn't stay, I couldn't watch you destroy everything like that."

"Don't you see?" Tony's yelling now, and somehow that's so much worse. "I didn't destroy anything – I had it all laid out! I had a plan, Cap, a plan, I was going to make everything okay. For you, for Peter. For every one of us, I did this to avoid so much."

"Avoid?" Steve barks out what almost sounds like a sarcastic laugh. "By starting a war, you avoided what, Tony? Because we were so close," the corner of his mouth twitches, but Tony can't say why. "We were so close."

"Everything that could have led to what's worse than this! This wasn't – I never planned for this – you're the one who turned it around, Steve, that wasn't me."

"No," Steve steps away, shaking his head, "No, you aren't blaming me for this, Tony. I only tried to protect us. To protect Peter."

Tony's hands are still convulsing, but he grasps the bottle of whiskey anyway, screwing it open, taking a long swig. How he missed that burn. "For Peter, right," he whispers to the bottle. "He was on your side, after all."

"This isn't about taking sides, Tony."

"Of course it is."

"You threw everything we worked for away," Steve stepped forward and with an agility and strength that Tony's only see on the battlefield, tore the bottle out of his hands and clutched it tightly to his own chest. "We dedicated our lives to protecting what we had, protecting Peter's identity, and you made him step up there and take off his mask in front of the entire world. And no, it's not about sides -" he almost sneers the word in a way that's worse than a curse, "Peter did that because he thought he could save you from yourself."

"Don't worry, Cap, your secret's still safe," Tony slurs, and he reaches for the bottle, but Steve throws it to the ground. Glass shatters everywhere, sparkling under the lighting, and Tony watches dozens of little shards spin away, amber liquid seeping across wooden flooring.

"I don't care about that. You should have figured that out by now, that I don't care any more." Tony looks up at him, and his throat tightens when he sees the tears streaming down the mighty Captain America's face. He hasn't seen Steve cry in a long time.

"Tomorrow, I surrender," he repeats. "And you'll finally win. Your side will finally win."

In a brief moment of weakness, Steve reaches out for Tony, and Tony reciprocates, and their mouths are pressed together, and it's tragic, and dangerous, and Tony wouldn't give it up for the world.

"I'm sorry things turned out this way," Steve says, and then he's pulling away, and he's gone.

He doesn't hear Tony's last I love you.

~X~

Wade's doing what Wade does when it happens.

He's getting ready to slit another throat, because right now it's the only thing that'll calm him down, when Peter comes crashing into him, all red and blue and spandex, and begs him to stop, for just a moment, just stop.

He listens because Wade listens to Peter, and looks over at him. He hasn't seen him since he revealed his identity as Peter Parker, as Tony Stark's adopted son, all in favor of the act. Wade's indifferent to it, just another opportunity for what he does, but he's seen how it's torn Peter into a thousand pieces. He'd hate it just for that, if he could.

"Why bother with the mask?" Wade asks, and it's the nicer of all the remarks he tumbled through his head. His white box is telling him to go easy on him, which is ridiculous, but shit happens.

Peter yanks the mask away in a flurry of movement, and Wade wishes he hadn't said a word because Peter's crying like he's never cried before. "He's dead, Wade, he's dead," he chokes out, voice like knives in his throat. "I can't – he's dead, he's dead -" He falls to his knees in a heap of broken sobbing, and after a moment Wade crosses his legs and sits across from him on the asphalt.

"I need more than that, Spidey, there's tons of he's in the world."

Cry baby.

[He's crying, we need to do something.]

"Pops, Wade, he's dead, they killed him, he's dead."

Wade shuts up for the first time in his life. So do his boxes.

~X~

Peter's in Tony Stark's mansion – because his, it is not – tearing at the walls, ripping expensive paintings off the wall, and kicking furniture over. He takes his time in the kitchen, where he cries the hardest, meticulously taking down each pot and pan and piece of silverware from various hooks and cabinets and drawers, and stuffs as much as he can down the train, turning on the garbage disposal as if to cause as much damage as possible. He tears open the fridge, and hesitates when he finds it empty, and even more so when he dares to look at the pictures pinned up with magnets all over their surface.

This is the first time he's gentle, plucking down hand-done drawings with dates from years ago, and photos of smiling faces, pushing them into Wade's hands without a word. When he's through with the kitchen, after tossing a chair through the window, he storms through one of the living rooms, the one that Wade's seen the most of, like a tornado, destroying glass cases and ripping open pillows, sobbing loudly. He rescues the pictures sitting in these frames too, and Wade carefully tucks them away, doing his best not to fold the edges or cause any creases. There's one that he can't bear to put away, of a ten year old Peter perched on Steve Rogers soldiers, smooshing cake into his hair. The date on the back is the same as Steve and Tony's wedding, and even Wade winces at that one.

Peter continues his rampage down the stairs to Tony's lab, and Wade doesn't follow him down there, but judging by the way he emerges soot covered and bleeding, he knows it's bad.

It continues like this for quite some time until they stumble into Peter's bedroom. It's untouched, clothes still strewn on the floor and old porn magazines stuck under the mattress, and Peter doesn't change a damn thing about it, just shuts the door, and walks away, slower this time. His fingers trail along the walls on the way out, and every picture frame he knocks down, Wade stops to free the photo from, piling them all into his arms.

"I should set it on fire," Peter says when their outside, staring up at the mess of broken glass and cracked plaster that was the Stark mansion. "Burn the whole damn thing to the ground, but Tony needs to see this."

Wade doesn't question it, and even his boxes are silent.

"I tried to save him, Wade, I did. Took off my mask, and he still didn't see. He didn't – he still went ahead and continued on like my whole life wasn't ruined by him. He didn't even care that I gave up everything trying to stop him. He didn't give a damn!" Peter screams the last sentence at the top of his lungs, and then slumps into Wade like he's exhausted.

"It wasn't worth it, Wade. It wasn't worth it."

**II.**

**We will meet back on this road**  
**Nothing gaining, truth be told**  
**But I'm not the enemy**

Tony's sitting with his head buried in his hands when it happens.

He's in Stark Tower which is the last Goddamn place he wants to be, but his mansion's been torn apart (not like he wanted to be there either, any way) and he fucking hates how he has to keep moving through the motions like everything's okay because he fucking did it. Tony Stark finally got what he wanted, and, look at that, he's been named director of SHIELD, and every Goddamn thing. Congratulations, Tony Stark.

Your husband is dead.

He hasn't let himself cry, not yet, and they fully expect him to show up at Steve's funeral like it matters. Steve's funeral, now that's something he never thought he'd see. Stupid, serum-injected, non-aging son of a bitch. Went ahead and died like had the right to leave everyone like that, leave Peter.

Leave Tony.

Tony, who's opening his third bottle of the day (congratulations, Tony Stark, Steve worked his ass off to get you out of the bottle and your diving right back in) and ignoring his phone who's buzzing with familiar names and faces he can't bear to think about.

"Sir, you have a visitor."

He can't even stand JARVIS, and he can't bring it in himself to reprogram the AI, and so he just lets him be. He doesn't need any Goddamn visitors right now, don't they understand that he can't physically function any more?

The elevator dings open anyway, and Tony picks up the bottle like he's getting ready to throw it, but then dozens of little shards spinning away, and amber liquid seeping across wooden flooring flash across his mind, and he let's go – it tips over as it is, spilling all over his keyboard and phone and papers, but he doesn't give a flying fuck.

"It's your fault."

I know, Steve, he wants to say, because that's exactly who's been haunting him for as long as he can remember. I know, Steve, it's my fault, I'm so sorry. But it's not Steve, who's standing before him, with red rimmed eyes, and clenched fists, and torn and tattered clothes, and a shadowy figure lurking behind him and eying Tony like he'd kill him if he could.

"Peter," he starts, standing up, gasping. He hasn't seen Peter since – no, he can't. "Son."

"You're not my father."

The words strike Tony somewhere in his arc reactor, because a heart he does not have, and he stumbles a little bit with their force.

Peter, on the other hand, takes a step closer, steady on his feet. "Richard Parker is my dad, and he's dead. And so is Pops. And so are you."

No, Pete, I'm right here, I'm so sorry. "Peter -"

"No," Peter raises a finger and looks away, biting his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. A nervous habit he's had for as long as Tony can remember, when he has so much he wants to say, and he can't seem to form the right words. "Shut up," he breathes, finger still raised, but now his dark eyes are piercing right into Tony's soul. "For one minute in your pathetic life, shut up. Pops -" he falters, hands falling to his sides. "Pops is dead, Tony Stark, and it's your fault."

"Peter, please -"

"Shut up," it's not Peter this time, it's Wade Wilson, still lurking in the background, scarred eyes wide and staring. "You shut up, and listen to him."

Peter continues on in a broken whisper, not all that different from the way Steve sounded when he said good-bye. "You did this. You killed the one man who ever loved you, because I don't."

_ Please, please, please, God, please, kill me._

"I hate you," Peter's sobbing now, open and broken, and Tony's never felt more dead inside. "I hate you more than I've ever hated anyone. And -" he looks back at Wade for a brief second. "And I'm going, I'm leaving. And don't follow me. Don't even try to find me." He clenches his jaw, his fists, taking a few steps forward and getting in his face the same way Steve did. He's so much like him, Tony thinks without really thinking it at all.

"Don't ever try to find me," he repeats. "Or so help me God. I. Will. Kill. You."

Peter Parker leaves Tony Stark sitting at his desk, staring into an empty bottle.

~X~

"What're your plans?"

Their sitting in some dinky, water-stained, mold-infested apartment that Peter snagged for them and demanded they stay in, although Wade's told him several times that he can get them a much better place. "My Spideycave's still on the table," he joked on more than occasion, but it didn't amuse Pete in the least bit.

Peter doesn't look from where he's laying across the creaky bed, hands folded beneath his head, gaze laser focused on the ceiling. Wade's sharpening a knife out of pure boredom, (or, more accurately Deadpool is, because he doesn't handle weapons without the mask) but he doesn't' miss the way Peter flinches every time the blade makes a sound.

"I wish I had one," he says at last, voice still soft and raw from all the screaming and crying he's been doing as of late.

"We could become renegade bounty hunters – oh wait," Wade frowns. "We already are. Well, we could try that whole domestic thing like the Su-" he breaks off. Even Wade Wilson has his limits, at least when it comes to Peter. He clears his throat. "We could get jobs at Taco Bell."

"You've been kicked out of every one, remember?" Peter grumbles, but there's a smirk there that Wade sure as hell missed, even if he wouldn't say it. Wade's about to make a fantastic retort but Peter whispers, "Come here," and he does that instead.

Wade's not much of a cuddler – except with Peter, because Peter's changed everything inside of Wade Wilson in a way that's totally different from his regenerative healing factor – but he lays next to Peter anyway, eyes focused on the same spot Peter's are.

"What're we starin' at?" he pokes Peter's side, hoping for some sort of reaction.

"Do me a favor, Wade," Peter looks at him. "Do me the biggest favor you've ever done anybody."

"Most of my favors come with a price, but I can make an exception for you."

The corner of Peter's mouth twitches, and he grasps one of Wade's hands. "I'm serious. Please, I'm begging you."

"Anything."

"Don't -" his voice breaks, and he looks away, still clutching at Wade's hand. After a moment of shallow breathing he starts again, "Don't -" but he stops once more, pulling his hand out of Wade's and yanking his mask up, so he can look in the eyes. "Don't fall in love with me the way Dad fell in love with Pops."

Wade pulls away, turning his face back to the ceiling, and pulls his mask back down tight. "It's a little late for that, Pete."

~X~

**III.**

**I came and I was nothing**  
**And time will give us nothing**  
**So why do you lean on a man you knew was falling?**

"You're not going then," Wade says, leaning against the doorjamb and staring at Peter who's going through Wade's assortment of weapons like he has a plan to do something with them.

"Why would I." It's not a question, Wade knows, it's a statement of, no. Peter refuses to, and the voices in Wade's head are telling him that maybe Peter should, but even they know that Wade can't force Peter to.

He doesn't reply.

Peter stands and he adjusts his hoodie around himself, drawing the hood up and over his head and taking one of Wade's smaller blades, tucking it onto the waistband of his jeans. "Let's go get some tacos."

He brushes past Wade on his way out, and Wade lets him.

~X~

Tony Stark is on that podium, staring down at the hundreds of faces who loved Steve.

More than he did probably, because if he loved Steve, if he really loved Steve, he wouldn't have done all the awful things he did.

At least that's what Steve tells him in his dreams at night.

"Steve -" Tony begins, the microphone shrieking in feedback, and then all is silent again. Tony's hands grip the podium, knuckles white, the skin underneath is nails red with all the blood rushing to them. The faces staring at him all merge together in a streak of white and black, the sun in the corner of his vision the only thing standing out. There's cameras surrounding him, and it's so fucking stupid, it's all too much, why were their cameras at a fucking funeral.

It takes Tony a moment to realize he can't see because he's crying.

He doesn't see Peter in that crowd.

"I'm sorry."

He doesn't know who he's apologising too, but he does it anyway and after he's done and walked away and found his way home to his completely trashed mansion, he lays down in a pile of broken glass and he cries.

~X~

"Let's go to Europe," Wade says over Taco Bell, mouth stuffed full of lettuce and cheese and taco meat. He swallows it down hard when Peter looks up at from playing with the straw of his Pepsi. (And that's how Wade knows that there's something severely wrong with his Petey because Peter doesn't drink anything other than Coke.)

He expects Peter to laugh and raise an eyebrow and say "Europe, really, Wade, you just want to go see if 221B Baker Street is real" but instead Peter just gives this smile that doesn't look anything like a smile and agrees.

Wade almost chokes on his taco. "What, really?"

"Why not," Peter shrugs and then he goes back to playing with his straw and shuts down and Wade knows right then and there that he's losing him.

~X~

Tony Stark leans back in his chair, sipping his third fifth of whiskey of the day and traces the track of the airplane across the Atlantic ocean with his eyes. There's a little bar in the corner of his screen that reads Peter Parker-Rogers (he took of the Stark weeks back) and his vitals. HIs heart rate is increased beyond that of the normal one for that altitude, but Wade Wilson's is as well, and s o Tony understands.

"Tony."

TOny looks up and his vision is so fucked that for a moment he thinks it's Pepper standing there before he remembers where she is. No, it's just some other assistant with strawberry blonde hair that he could care less about it. Why is she calling him Tony anyway, she should be addressing him as MR. Stark.

"What is it."

"Somebody's on the phone for you."

"I'll get it next time."

"Mr. Stark. It's important."

Tony looks up at her and narrows his gaze, leaning across his desk and pointing a finger at her. "Get out of my office. Now. Or you're fired."

THe woman shifts uneasily on her feet but gives a curt nod and runs out anyway, blabbering into some mobile with a stuttering voice. Tony thinks he'll fire her anyway.

He turns back to the monitor and traces the plane with his finger now, until his drink runs out.

~X~

Wade Wilson and Peter Parker don't come back.

**IV.** **And bury me beside you**  
**I have no hope in solitude**  
**And the world will follow you to the earth down below**

Tony Stark has just put himself back together when it happens.

It took too long, so fucking long, and more than one person would argue that he's not really Tony but some shell of him. He doesn't care, he doesn't even want to, because he stored his last bottle and organised everything and it's fall fine and dandy.

It's so fine in fact that he's even put the suit back on without hating himself for doing so. (That's not quite true - Tony Stark will always hate himself.)

So fine in fact that when he gets a call, he answer the phone in a cheery tone.

All he gets in return is two words that slice through everything he's made of himself in the past three years.

"He's alive."


End file.
